Category Archives for Airlines.
When American ended Chicago – China service they freed up Boeing 787 aircraft and seemingly didn’t know what to do with them. They’re flying 787s now to Cancun and Anchorage.
Then they freed up even more 787-8 flying time. Since they removed business class seats from 787-8 aircraft, with the new configuration featuring only 20 seats up front, the plane no longer works for premium markets.
Delta calls moving from regular coach to extra legroom coach (“Comfort+”) seats an ‘upgrade’ the way other airlines call coach to business an upgrade.
When you buy a ticket you don’t just assign yourself an extra legroom seat, your upgrade ‘clears’ into the extra legroom section of the plane. This process is going to create a problem on several routes beginning in March.
I’ve written before about how Delta award sales don’t drive much value to the program.
Pulling up award calendars on Delta it’s indeed possible to find 44,000 mile roundtrip. What’s striking to me is how much extra legroom coach is pricing for the same flights (164,000) and how much business class costs. Imagine, 930,000 miles for business class. This isn’t even first class – and you’d better hurry, there’s only 1 seat left at this price.
On New Year’s Day Delta CEO sent a message to his airline’s employees laying out the company’s goals for the year. While Delta doesn’t have the simple mission the way that Southwest does they have clear goals and metrics to know whether they’re reaching those goals or not.
And it seems useful sharing what the airline is telling its employees what the company is doing, and the priorities those employees should have as they go about their year.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
For a long time American AAdvantage has offered status ‘challenges’ that do not require you to already have status with another airline and that you pay for. These allow you to earn elite status more quickly with travel over a compressed period of time.
American started requiring minimum spend as part of these challenges, and is expected to increase the spend required — so if you’re interested in a status challenge you may want to request it sooner than later.
Alitalia is in the midst of restructuring, since Etihad pulled the plug and stopped subsidizing the Italian flag carrier. Before Etihad pumped money in, Air France lost their shirt on the carrier.
Two months ago it was reported that Delta had submitted a binding offer to invest in the Italian airline.
Truly Akbar al-Baker, CEO of Qatar Airways, is a man for our times.
The great thing about Akbar al-Baker, and his access to the Al Thani pocketbook, is that when he wants to troll another airline CEO he can do it with a half billion dollar investment.
Delta SkyMiles eliminated award charts. They charge you whatever they happen to want to charge you for a flight on a given day. SkyMiles aren’t like money, you can’t spend them anywhere you want (say for travel on American). It’s a company town, SkyMiles are their scrip, and they make no promises about what you should expect to get for your points in the future with a published price list.
A year and a half ago United made fun of the idea. However they’ve taken down the fulll .pdf award chart, and the interactive price tool doesn’t even display premium economy award prices at all.
This week’s amazing Cathay Pacific business and first class fare deal is being honored. Following right on after that Air New Zealand offered business class between Chicago and Sydney for under $1500 roundtrip.
If you booked this and your ticket is still intact it appears the deal will be honored. Congratulations!
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
